FIBROMYALGIA: I’m Not Pretending To Be Sick, I Actually Pretend To Be Well

If you do not know me well enough or you are part of my family, it is possible that on some occasions you have come to think that I am pretending to be sick.

Maybe you think that you can not be continually tired or that it is impossible for someone to live with constant pain and I wish that was the case and I, like many other people, did not experience it in the first person, pretending to be well for our family and acquaintances,

pretending to be fine to go to work every day even a brutal torture and we can only half meet our obligations swollen pills and painkillers, crawling with great difficulty for when we finally got home can not move or the intense and insufferable pain and a strenuous exhaustion from which we never recover.

But in spite of everything I have no choice but to act as if I was well.

It’s much easier to pretend and try to make me see that I’m fine because that way I do not have to defend myself. I do not have to explain to someone that living in constant and constant pain is possible.

Nor do I have to return to enumerate symptoms to someone who does not feel any interest. I do not have to justify unrelenting fatigue. I do not have to explain why I do not go to the gym or the pool as before. I’d like to be fine, but I’m not.

I do not understand very well why I feel that I have to pretend to be fine when it’s the opposite. Why does the opinion of others matter so much? Why do not I care what they think?

I am tired, very tired of trying to explain how I really am, I have explained it to family and friends who have not understood my daily reality, I have even told doctors who have looked at me with disbelief and have told me that what I tell It is not possible, that I exacerbate the symptoms.

A few yes, thank God but not the majority and maybe that is why I have developed great skills as an actor in a role that I never asked to touch me.

It’s crazy, but sometimes I feel like a criminal continually judged by people who do not know anything about me or my life and before this world it’s best to pretend that people who barely know you or know anything about you do not start giving you Advice on what you should do without having the slightest idea or believe you know better than me how I am and what affects me or not.

Even if it costs me, I always try to be nice when someone asks me how I am doing. That is a question that sometimes almost makes me burst out with anger because I can not tell the truth, but I hold back and try to divert the topic or try to settle it with a short “I’m fine”.

I could say “today I managed to get out of bed without help” or “I’ve been doing something better for a few days when the pain is giving me a break” or “this week is being a hell because I’m going through a crisis”,

But this would lead to having to justify my state again, to have to explain why I feel like that, and I’m probably not going to believe it, so the answer is never the truth.

I would like to stop pretending that I feel good and show my true state, I would like those who ask me to do so with a real interest in my state and not see or listen as others suspect I am lying when I tell them which one It is my real state.

Do you feel the need to pretend that you’re okay when it’s not like that? Would you like to change that?